Mcmolly

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

With the sudden influx of wayfarers seeking refuge in Thorinn, it came as no surprise that the downtown market was utterly flooded with people. Denizens and players alike crowded the vendors, filling the air with a nearly-overwhelming cacophony of haggling, arguments, and occasionally a threat of violence. People were scared. They were hoarding. Food flew from the stands, alchemists were selling potions faster than they could brew them. The poor smiths, bless their hearts, would likely be working day and night for weeks to fill the orders they’d gotten in one afternoon alone.
…
It was disconcerting to Seele, if she was being honest. Thorinn was about to find itself with an abundance of wayfarers who were not only afraid for their lives, but who were also armed to the teeth. She hoped that in a few days’ time they’d all settle down, and the bubbling tension wouldn’t boil over into anything drastic. Well, really she hoped that in a few days’ time this whole problem would be fixed, but it seemed a bit silly to imagine a timeframe for a problem so…grand in scale.

Navigating the bustle wasn’t easy, but they managed. Seele made note of a few bakeries along the way, pointing them out to Kazuki only to feel a bit weird about it afterwards.

“Ah, sorry, I don’t know why I’m acting like a tour guide. You’re the one with a house here, you probably know the city better than I do. Thorinn is nice and all, but if I’m being honest, I think I’ve always sorta preferred the Theremian vale, or the Toraenis midlands.” It felt a bit guilting to say out loud. She giggled. “Don’t tell my pathos, though. What’s yours, by the way? You don’t strike me as the Drox type. Did you travel here from your starting kingdom?”
…
They came upon a clothier’s shop that was relatively uncrowded, which she supposed made sense. There were probably better, cheaper places to buy materials, and she doubted fancy clothes were high on anyone’s must-have list as it was. Nor was it on hers, either, and though she hadn’t come for clothes, she did always feel a little bit guilty whenever she spent money on herself.

But she really did not want another hat.

“Oh, sorry, hold that thought just a moment. I’ll be right back!”

Seele vanished inside, leaving Kazuki alone—or as alone as anyone could be in a busy market—for what was, to her credit, as close to “a moment” as someone could reasonably expect. When she came back out there was nothing noticeably different about her apparel, but she seemed delighted nonetheless. Her hand rested on a handle jutting from the hip of the manifold layers of her robe, and she smirked with the closest approximation to “devilishness” that she was capable of. With a bit of flourish, she drew from its thin sheath something that might have at first glance been a kind of oddly-shaped rapier, but then with a click of some internal mechanism, revealed itself in a flapping of cloth to in fact be a simple, black parasol.

She twirled it happily and let it come to rest against her shoulder, casting herself in its shade.
… …sy…
“Ah, there we go, much better. Thanks for indulging me, this’ll make the sun much more bearable. And unlike that old hat, I can actually keep this in check if things get…exciting, let’s say. But anyway, we were walking.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

"Why are you trying so hard to help me?"

The question was simple, yet it left her feeling almost embittered, which was silly and no one else’s fault but her own. He was right to be hesitant—she disliked it, but he was right to. People often asked her what her “angle” was, tried to figure out if she had some shady ulterior motive, or what she stood to gain from her attitude. But was it even about motive? The simple answer would have been along the lines of: “because it’s the right thing to do,” but truthfully it had never really been about right and wrong. Seele couldn’t justly moralize to anyone, especially not now that they were all trapped in this strange world.

So instead, she answered simply: “Because I want to,” and then left that bit of his question behind.
… … …
“I’m not trying to fix you, Kazuki. You’re grown, clearly you know your own flaws. They’re yours. You’ll face them when you’re ready, or when you have to. I just want to help.”

She stepped away from the house, gesturing for him to follow. “So c’mon, lets get moving. We’ll take any route you like, you lead the way. As long as it’s forward.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele watched…something take hold of Kazuki. Once again, as it had in the house, his body language changed dramatically in the spam of only a few moments. Suddenly he was all rigid and anchored and his voice had shrunk. He seemed…diminished.
…
The urge to hug him was strong, but she repressed it. She had to remind herself that feelings weren’t going to cut it with Kazuki. Platitudes and flattery might have only upset him more, so perhaps it was better to approach things head-on. There was something to be said for the comfort provided by just having a plan. She thought, then came back over to him. She tried to make her voice even and unafflicted with concern.

“I can’t be certain, no, but I believe it’s where he’s most likely to be. If we want to find him, that’s our best bet.” She couldn’t hold the tone, though. All it took was a moment’s silence for her to crumble into something softer. “But, you know, we don’t have to go there right away. It’s still early, and giving him some more time to cool off might even be a good thing. We could take the long way, run some errands if there’s anything you need to do. Could pick out that pastry I owe you, and I’ve been meaning to pick up something to help deal with this sun.”
…
She smiled, backing up, trying to lead him along into the streets. “It might be uncomfortable, but you are doing the right thing, Kazuki. We won’t linger if we don’t have to, and, hey, if we get there and he doesn’t show up, we can just go back to the tavern. Maybe look for Benkei if he isn’t back yet.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

"Mhm. You're right about most of that, I suppose."

She’d take that every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

It was a smidgen bittersweet that they were leaving already. They’d only really just gotten here and it was a lovely house, but she wasn’t about to make herself into a speedbump on the road to mending the group back together. Seele got up and pushed her chair back in neatly, glancing around on habit to make sure there weren’t any chores left undone. In Kazuki’s house. God, maybe she did have a problem.

“Right,” she said, a bit absently, only just catching up to what he’d said. “I mean—oh, it won’t come to that. But maybe we can keep a little space between you for…insurance’s sake.”

She followed him out, and while he locked up the door, she cast her eyes out to the streets and thought. Rael had mentioned that Graves’s errands would take him to Mystic Prophecy, though she wasn’t sure if he was still going to be adhering to that schedule. He might just as likely be miles out of the city by now, but she chose to have a bit more faith in Rael than that.

“I believe Graves was going to try and meet up with Priscilica, so we might have luck finding him at her guild hall.” Her own errands for the day were going to bring her that way anyhow, she supposed. Still, the awkwardness wasn’t lost on her. She turned back to Kazuki with an almost apologetic look on her face. “If it would be more…comfortable for you, I could try and get him to meet you outside.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

There it was again, that urge to sing. She restrained it, so as to avoid being thrown out onto the street, but still—the progress! How could she resist smiling at least a little bit? While Kazuki put away the dishes and proposed their next course of action, she turned away and let herself be giddy for a moment. By the time he came back, she was more or less composed.

It was nice to hear his thoughts out loud. Little blips on a map, they were, and even if the roads connecting them were a bit obscure—he was, after all, a bit obscure himself—there was still plenty to decipher in the things he did divulge. He was willing to apologize, but not yet ready to change his mind. A compromise of pride for…pride? Or perhaps it was a matter of self-respect. He did not seem like an obsequious man, but neither was he unyielding.

Strange how in flux his confidence was, how that flux reflected in him. Suddenly he seemed entirely at ease, speaking evenly and shrugging. Not a nervous bone in his body. Then again, he’d shown much the same level-headedness back in the dungeon. Had that been a front? She couldn’t place him, not yet, anyway, which was probably for the best. The point wasn’t to figure Kazuki out, the point was to help him.
…
“Logic is all nice and neat for puzzles, less so for interpersonal drama,” she said. She’d opted to stay seated, smiling up at him from the table. “You don’t need to change your mind right this instant. As much as I’d love for all of us to hold hands and remember each other’s birthdays, it’s not fair to expect friendship from nothing.”

She thought a moment, lips pursed. The angle did feel wrong to her. She didn’t think Kazuki was a cold person. He was smart, and obviously talented, but that didn’t inherently make him some kind of emotionless golem. Already they’d seen people’s personas crumble to reveal much softer interiors, who was to say that couldn’t happen again? Nevertheless, she doubted she was going to get through to him preaching altruism and ooey-gooey feelings.
…
“But,” she said slowly, thumbing her lip. “It is fair, I think, to expect friendliness. Or, let’s call it something else…uhm…flexibility, maybe. If keeping the group together means keeping everyone together, then for the time being, you might have to compromise your logic telling you to exclude…weak links, just like some of the others might have to compromise their feelings on working with you. If you do that, if you give it time and you put a little faith in the rest of us to pick up whatever slack it is you feel there might be, I promise you things will mend on their own. It could be that you’re right, and we are better off cutting ties with difficult members, but a good skeptic embraces the chance to be wrong, doesn’t he? Because he wants to learn something.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele watched the tension in Kazuki…not ‘unwind’ per se, but more rewind, slackening in some places, tightening in others. He was a tangle of things, the poor boy, and most of them he kept shockingly well-hidden. Some, though, came out in his body-language—she swore at one point he was going to crush that innocent teacup in his hands—and others still were there in his voice, in the little tremors and sighs, the pauses and, of course, the things he said.

She was used to meeting people who held others to impossible standards. Kazuki was evidently guilty of that as well, but he also expected that same impossibility from himself. For how well-composed he’d been through the glitch, she guessed he was no stranger to the strain that must have beset him with. They might have been trapped in a strange world, but that didn’t mean they’d left all their problems behind. It was their minds inhabiting Pariah, after all. You couldn’t escape your own mind.
...
You just couldn’t.
...
“Then don’t convince them,” she said, and brightened again. “Show them. Maybe you can’t take back what you said, but there’s an important difference between unsaying something, and undoing it. Or just doing, maybe. For example—”

Seele plucked up another piece of the pastry and popped it into her mouth, chewed—“Mmh!”—and then gestured to the plate.

“I’ve just eaten another bit, and now there’s hardly any left for you. I can’t undo that, I’ll just have to live with the guilt. I could say ' I’m sorry, Kazuki, for eating your very tasty pastry,' —even though I’m not really, it was very tasty—or I could do something about it instead. Like, say, buy you another to replace it, or maybe bake you one myself, if you aren’t averse to eating poison.

“Am I making sense? I think I’m just rambling, sorry—again. My point is, the forgiveness isn’t nearly as important as just making things right.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele let out a low whistle as they entered Kazuki’s home. They slipped off their shoes—it had been awhile since she’d had to do that—and he motioned to a seat at the little dining table. She took the scenic route to get to it, going about admiring the pleasant simplicity. Neat, cozy, and she was hard-pressed to find even a spec of dust.

And, gods, the piano was just gorgeous. All of the instruments in Pariah had a bit of a fantastical flourish to them, but this was a quality piece. She didn’t dare touch it, and the questions bubbling up in her mind were shelved away for later.
…
Eventually she found her seat as Kazuki returned with tea and a delicious-looking pastry. She accepted gratefully, bowing, and took a few sips while Kazuki went into the details of what had happened at the tavern. The gist of it had been surmisable, but the way he talked—so certain and clinical, even about his own feelings. It was like he was reading off a prognosis.

She took a segment of the pastry and popped it into her mouth, brows raising at the taste. The breading was crisp and crumbly, the innards sweet and tangy. She’d been to real bakeries before that didn’t sell treats this good. It was a small relief that the glitch hadn’t just given flavor to the bitter, choking potions.

"Kazuki," Seele said, and made another satisfied "mm!" sound as she finished the rest of the piece. "You are an excellent host. You're also a terrible psychic."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: City Streets -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele tried to size him up, get a read, but the man was a sphynx. A sphynx with a dour look permanently carved into his silly, symmetrical face. Frankly, it felt a lot like dealing with Rael, only this time she had the benefit of already having dealt with someone like Rael. Brick walls they were, just different flavors of brick.

“Well, you certainly seem to know him better than I do, so if you think he’s alright…” she said, flapping a hand at her face and airing out the collar of her robe. The witchy look had always worked for her, but Thorinn wasn’t making it easy anymore. The humidity wasn’t so much the problem, she was used to that, but the sun was just dreadful. Suddenly, her dearly departed hat didn’t seem so silly anymore.

Kazuki still had a little sass left in him, it seemed, but she waved it off. “I’m here because it’s not safe for a young man to go wandering around the city alone, clearly. The place is a playground on Halloween, just swap out the sugar for mass panic, and the children for…well, bigger children, I suppose,” she said, gesturing around at the unprecedented bustle that had seized her patron city. Distantly she could hear more raucous shouting, likely from other wayfarers finding themselves in similarly tense situations. “And you know, at this point it feels like getting the full story would be like playing Telephone. It's probably all garbled and twisted up and not at all like what actually happened, I don’t think.”

She finally straightened up, took a deep breath of her own, and like that she was smiling again. “But you’re welcomed to tell it to me, if you like. Or we could just talk. You might have noticed I like talking maybe a bit too much, but I’m also good at listening. So, if you want me to zip up, you’ll just have to give me something to listen to.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele wasn’t silly, she could take a hint well enough. It was clear their conversation was nearing its close, and that perhaps now it was best that she give Rael some space, either to be alone, or to seek solace in someone else’s company. Whatever worked for her, whatever she needed to do to…be alright, that’s what Seele wanted for her.

“Well, I’d never want you to lie; might as well be building your bridges out of paper, in that case. It isn’t a matter of self-preservation, I just meant that, if you—oh, I’m starting again, aren’t I? Anyway, I’ll get out of your hair now. It was nice getting to talk to you, Rael. I hope we can do it again, maybe under happier circumstances next time.” She smiled again, stood up from the table, and gave the girl a wink. “Oh, and, I’m always going to worry, just a little. I’m your support after all, that’s my job.”

Someone shouted below. “Excuse me,” she said.

And with that, she left the second floor behind. It would have been a lie to say it had gone perfectly, but then again, in Seele’s mind perfectly would have been Rael and Alja and Kalie all hugging out their differences over a pop and some grilled cheese. Lofty expectations, sure, but she put a pin in them anyway and filed them away under: “one day.” For what it was though, it was enough.

Now all she needed to do was—

“Hey!”
…
"It is my fault."
…
"Don't you throw that in my face!"
…
Seele stood three or four steps up from the ground floor, blinking, a bit dumbstruck. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, right? She was absolutely certain that when she’d left, the lot of them, Alja and Rael aside, had been getting on just splendidly. Had time slipped her again? Had there been another glitch? What—and this could not be emphasized enough—the frick?

The matron from earlier with the exceptional de-escalation skills had made her way over to the group, which could have meant only bad things. They were about to get themselves thrown out onto the street in what was undoubtedly the most tumultuous time in any of their lives. Over what? What had happened?

Seele pinched the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath.
…
It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, they could move past it—they would have to. And if they couldn’t, then group or not, Seele had made the choice to stick by these people. They had survived something awful together, and not words, not even fists, was going to change that. She was not going to abandon them. Any of them.

Graves’s shouting brought her back. She watched him storm out of the tavern. His words were clear, disconcerting, but a challenge was a challenge. Shortly after, Kazuki and Benkei followed suit looking about as dejected as Graves was grumpy. Fine. She hurried outside, giving Alex a sympathetic nod for the effort he’d put into defusing the situation. He really was such a nice boy, even if he was also a little sloshed.

To her surprise, Rael had already caught up to Graves. Fair enough, the girl was perhaps not so great with softer emotions, but something told Seele she was well-equipped to handle shouting and anger. So she turned her attentions to the other two. Benkei had vanished into the streets, but Kazuki was taller and tall people tended to lope when they were sad—much easier to spot. She broke into a jog and, eventually, caught up to him.

“Kazu—ooph,” she hunched, took a few breaths. She should have buffed herself first. “I know what you said, and I’ll go if you really, really want to be alone, but I really, really, really-er think that maybe being alone right now isn’t a great idea. You can still walk around and think and I’ll be extra quiet if that’s what you want, but I would also love some help looking for Benkei. We should all at least be,” she made a vague, gathering gesture, finally regaining her wind. “Oh, you get it.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

This was…unideal.

Not only were the denizens getting involved—shockingly more involved than she’d ever seen them able to get before—but the players weren’t making things any easier. One of the dungeoneers from the other day, bless his soul, was venting his frustrations in what could really only be described as an “unproductive” way. Another denizen, one of the snazzily-dressed matrons, settled him down, and Rael skulked away upstairs.
…
In any other circumstance, she would have taken the cue to sit back and let things simmer down, but Seele wasn’t so sure anymore how long they’d have that luxury. It was plain enough to see that somehow the city and its inhabitants had changed seemingly overnight, and if tensions were this high in one tavern among people who, at least in her opinion, ought to have been able to see eye-to-eye, she couldn’t imagine how raucous things were going to get elsewhere in Thorinn.

Mustering up some of that high-demand-low-supply resolve, Seele pursed her lips, smoothed out her robes, and made for the stairs. She bowed her head respectfully to the matron standing there, trusting that she looked about the furthest thing from a problem as could be, then went up.

Rael was sat at a table alone, with her food and her notebook and a surprising calmness on her face. Or, well, she supposed not so surprising. Seele had meant to talk to the girl earlier, to thank her for her steadfastness in the dungeon, and the helping hand she’d leant to Kalie, and also to simply talk. Perhaps she’d waited too long, or perhaps she simply wasn’t interested. It didn’t matter much now.
…
“Rael,” Seele said, approaching the table slowly. Calm though she looked, the last thing Seele wanted was that clenched fist swinging her way. “I’m not here to yell, or argue. I’d just like to talk, if that’s alright with you.”